The first public Ca3DE "New Material Development Kit" (MDK) is available now! It includes all the tools and information you need to make new worlds, new textures, new models (like players, weapons, or items), and even new MODs. Moreover, also the latest Ca3DE DeathMatch MOD source codes are included! Many have asked for it, and I'm happy that I don't have to let you wait any longer. Have fun!

The new November demo release is ready, too, and I have put a lot of effort into it. Initially, I intended to list all the technical improvements and changes here, but the list was huge. You find all the technical details in the "Change Log" section of the Ca3DE user manual, if you are interested in them anyway.Here is a summary about the most important news:

The engine entity handling has much improved. It's more flexible and better designed now, and there are also a lot of new entities, like translucent walls, detail objects, water, clip brushes, ladders, and so on.

The development of the Ca3DE DeathMatch MOD made some real progress, too. It is still far from complete, but I considered all the other points on this list as more important. Although the DeathMatch source codes are now part of the MDK, the continued development of this MOD is one of my highest priority goals for the near future.

Worlds load generally faster now, and the frame-rate is higher. This is a result of exhaustive improvements to the renderer as well as the player movement and clipping code. In some places, the frame-rate raised by a factor of ten!

The new demo release includes some new, very famous worlds: Elixir from ReNo (Duncan Blair), Kidney from Dave Johnston, and Gotham from Robert L. Miles. These are some of the best and most famous worlds ever, and I am proud to present them with Ca3DE! All worlds of the current demo release (also the ones of previous releases) were augmented with the latest engine capabilities.

The model renderer is now able to hierarchically combine sub- and super-models. That enables players to hold weapons in their hands, and it works even when they move their arms.

As a part of the summer semester 2002, we completed the task to develop a real-time renderer for large eco-systems. The result was an astonishing well-working renderer for the components "terrain", "grass vegetation", and "trees". I hope that I will soon be able to integrate these parts into Ca3DE, as even the sheer imagination of combining such nature and outdoor scenes with Ca3DE seems to promise very interesting results. Don't miss the sample screen-shots to get a first impression of our project results!

Another university project I am currently working on involves point based rendering. That's a very interesting and powerful rendering paradigm. For example, it allows easy speed/quality trade-offs and level-of-detail control, and is theoretically applicable to nearly everything - from tiny detail objects over highly complex player models to large outdoor terrains. The project is more in the research field, and has nothing to do with Ca3DE. However, when it is finished it might become possible to exploit its results in Ca3DE.

As you can see, Ca3DE also got a new webite. It it techically more robust (no frames anymore, other improvements), and looks more modern. Hope you like it.

For further details, please refer to the "Change Log" section of the Ca3DE user manual. The information there is more extensive and more detailed.

I hope you enjoy the MDK and the current demo with all the new stuff. Please let me know what you think about it, feed-back helps me to get Ca3DE better.